How To Make Your Own Helium Hood Kit
Information for competent adults who are terminally or hopelessly ill and wish to die
2011 Addendum to Chapter 23 of Final Exit book & Final Exit on DVD
By Derek Humphry

NOTE: Persons with severe depression or mental health problems are asked not to use ‘Final Exit’ or the information in this Addendum, but instead seek professional psychological care.

Document Description:
Helium hood kits which have been used by hundreds of people who wished peacefully to end their lives because of protracted terminal or hopeless illness. Unfortunately, currently there are no reliable suppliers of the kits. Thus it is necessary to make your own kit if you wish to explore this form of self-deliverance. This right-to-die method is legal because it is not assisted suicide nor voluntary euthanasia.

Derek Humphry, author of the world’s best-known how-to book on choices in dying, “Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying,” has written this detailed guide to how to make a helium hood kit.

This PDF document, with illustrations, outlines the following points:
• Materials and Items Needed for Helium Method
• Sourcing the Parts and Materials
• Location and Setup
• Preparing the Tanks and Tubing
• Making the “Hood”
• Instructions for Hastening Death (in the event of irreversible illness that is causing unbearable suffering)
• Cautions
• DVD Images and Illustrations
• Book and Video Resources

To ensure a smooth departure, it is strongly advised that a person also carefully reads the latest revised edition of “Final Exit” book/eBook and watches “Final Exit DVD” both available at the ERGO Bookstore.

The author, Derek Humphry, who now has more than 30 years experience in the death with dignity movement, helped his first wife Jean to die when suffering a lingering death from breast cancer. His book on that event, ‘Jean’s Way’ is a cult classic. Five years after her death he founded the Hemlock Society at his new home in Santa Monica. Derek built the group into a national organization between 1980 and 1992.(Hemlock was merged in 2003 into another organization, Compassion and Choices.)

A new position paper just published by the Dutch Physicians Association
(KNMG) says unbearable and lasting suffering should not be the only
criteria physicians consider when a patient requests euthanasia.

The KNMG says the new guidelines will clarify the responsibilities,
possibilities and limitations that physicians have within the
regulations of the 2002 euthanasia law (Termination of Life on Request
and Assisted Suicide [Review Procedures] Act or Euthanasia Act for short).

Until now, factors such as income or a patient’s social life played
almost no role when physicians were considering a euthanasia request.
However, the new guidelines will certainly change that. After almost a
year of discussions, the KNMG has published a paper which says social
factors and diseases and ailments that are not terminal may also qualify
as unbearable and lasting suffering under the Euthanasia Act.

At the moment, there are approximately one million elderly people in the
Netherlands with multi-morbidity (two or more long-term diseases or
ailments) and that number is expected to rise to 1.5 million in the
course of the coming decade. According to the new guidelines,
vulnerability (or fragility) refers to health problems, and the ensuing
limitations, as well as a concurrent decline in other areas of life such
as financial resources, social network and social skills.
…..
Read the whole very interesting article athttp://www.rnw.nl/english/article/euthanasia-advice-redefines-suffering

The Crown Prosecution Service [in England] has not implemented a “blanket policy” banning the prosecution of cases of assisted suicide, its head has insisted. The Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer admitted that no prosecutions had been brought for the offense since new CPS guidelines were issued 18 months ago.

But he said after personally overseeing all the “unique” cases since then, none have involved an individual who was “motivated by the prospect of gaining from the victim’s death”.

Mr Starmer’s comments came after campaigners against a change in assisted suicide law claimed prosecutors were interpreting the new guidelines too liberally and risked creating “legalisation by stealth”.

Supporters of a change in the law however said the protocol – which was introduced in February last year and put the motives of those assisting suicide at the centre of the decision over whether they should be prosecuted – is not enough.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, Mr Starmer said: “Any inference that the Crown Prosecution Service has implemented a blanket policy of simply not prosecuting for this offence would be wrong. Each case is carefully considered on its own facts and merits. Prosecutors must decide the importance of each public interest factor in the circumstances of each case and go on to make an overall assessment.

“Assisting or encouraging suicide remains a criminal offence, and there must always be a thorough investigation into any suspected cases.”

Two matters which might (or might not) affect you:
#1.
The FBI is still pressing local police and Interpol to visit persons who have been in contact with the GLADD Group, in Southern California, over helium hood kits. New York police, for instance, have made some ‘wellness checks’ six weeks ago, and again in recent days! And customers of GLADD have also been recently visited in Canada and Switzerland.

So don’t be surprised if you still get a call from police. Just assure them that you are well, thank you, and that the reason you contacted GLADD was in case of serious illness in the future. Do not invite them in (unless they have a search warrant, which is unlikely.) Handle their call on your doorstep.

These police ‘wellness checks’ are legal under health laws.

GLADD has of course been shut down by the FBI since 25 May, and the 91-year-old manufacturer of the kits on her home sewing machine, Sharlotte Hydorn, is still waiting to see if she is going to be prosecuted for anything.

# 2
The old canard about helium being diluted so that it is no longer lethal is circulating again. It is of course not true.

If the manufacturers diluted their helium they would lose the multi-million business from industry, science, laboratories, diving companies, and the party balloon kits. Plus, if they diluted the helium, by law they would have clearly to mark every canister with that information.

In the ten years since the helium hood method of self-deliverance from a terminal illness has been publicly known — and used — an instance of dilution of this inert gas has never surfaced. Hundreds of dying persons have used this escape route from their suffering.

Terminally ill patients should receive medical help to commit suicide if
they want to die, a [UK] government adviser has said.

Martin Green, a social care expert for the Department of Health, said
those who were physically unable to end their own lives were being
deprived of “choice” and “autonomy” in Britain where assisted suicide
remains illegal. He has now called for a change in the law.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said policy should be
decided with either a referendum or a free vote in Parliament.

“If you’re going to give people ‘choice’, it should extend to whether or
not they want to die,” he told the paper. “If people have got the
capacity to make an informed choice then it is my view that they should
be allowed to make the informed choice.”

Assisted suicide is a topic that often gets coverage in Switzerland’s national media, but in Israel, the subject is taboo. In recent days, that taboo has been brought into the open, following news that a high-profile television and radio presenter, Avi Talmor, traveled to Switzerland to end his life with the help of assisted dying group, Dignitas.

Talmor wrote a series of accounts, explaining his decision, which goes against Israeli law and the Jewish faith.

Some people wonder if the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, is genuine and reliable because it often gets a bad press from right-wing newspapers in Europe.

I consider Dignitas to be a reputable organization, doing a great service to humanity. I know doctors and researchers who have spent time there and studied the operation.. Their verdict is favorable. I have met Mr Minelli, who is the boss, at a conference in Paris and he struck me as a thoughtful man of integrity

Dignitas has many opponents, particularly in the news media, which concocts or exaggerates stories about their work.

PHOENIX, Ariz. — The last of the four criminal cases in Phoenix has been resolved without a trial.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict during the trial last April of Final Exit Network volunteer exit guide Frankin R. Langsner, of Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix. A retrial had been scheduled to take place in August. Instead, however, the State gave Langsner the opportunity to plead “guilty” to a minor charge. He entered the negotiated guilty plea in June.
The Phoenix police had charged Langsner, 86, with two serious felonies, “manslaughter” by aiding in a suicide and “conspiracy” to commit manslaughter, in connection with the self-deliverance of Jana Van Voorhis, 58, at her Phoenix home on April 12, 2007.
In the plea-bargain, the Maricopa County prosecutor’s office agreed to let Langsner plead guilty to one count of “endangerment,” and dropped the serious charges. “Endangerment” is a minimal felony, but under the terms of Continue Reading »

The Swiss government has dropped a plan to impose stricter rules for assisted suicide.
Switzerland has long permitted “passive assisted suicide,” where someone can give another person the means to kill themselves provided the helper doesn’t personally benefit from the death.
The government said Wednesday that existing laws provide enough safeguards to prevent abuse without giving the impression that the government approves the work of suicide groups such as Dignitas.
Some lobby groups abroad have called on Switzerland to ban what they term “suicide tourism” by preventing foreigners from using the groups’ services.
The government says the current rules strike a balance between protecting vulnerable individuals and safeguarding their right to self-determination. (From AP report)

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Assisted-Dying BlogWeblog of Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society & author of Final Exit, serving the rights of competent, terminally ill adults for 30 years
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